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"I would like to know," he began, "how Garner Ted
Armstrong does this program. Where does he get all the amazing
facts he is always giving us? And how does he do the program? I
don't see how he could keep pouring out so much information, unless
it is all written on script -- yet it doesn't sound like he is
reading it, and he surely could not find the time to write so much,
beside researching out so much information, and keep it up daily.
And surely no one could carry so much in his head and ad-lib it."
I smiled. I suppose a lot of people wonder how this can
be done.
So now, as closely as I can remember our conversation,
I'll try to give you the explanation. In the first place, Ted has
now been on the air for about 13 years. He is quite experienced.
In the second place, he's very well informed. I think no man
probably has a better grasp of world affairs and their
significance, of social conditions, of family life and problems and
of human nature. And more, probably no person on earth has a
better knowledge and understanding of the Bible, and of Biblical
prophecy -- which gives the only real explanation of world
conditions today, and of their meaning and where they are heading,
and of the real meaning and purpose of life itself.
In the third place, so far as current news and events are
concerned, Ted is an inveterate reader. He reads rapidly, as his
mother did (I read very slowly). He crams in a lot of reading in
his average day. He has an unusually apt sense of comprehension,
especially for sifting out instantly what is important from what is
trivial. And he has a remarkable power of retention. So his mind
is pretty well filled with the things he talks about, so that they
simply come fluently into the mike.
Fourthly, we have at Ambassador College, Pasadena campus,
a very well-organized News Bureau, staffed with a crew of well-
trained men. They have been trained our way -- for this particular
job, and our particular program. The News Bureau is equipped with
both the AP and the UPI Teletypes. These are bringing us
constantly, 24 hours a day, the full leased wire news reports from
all over the world. We get the news at the same time it is
received by leading newspapers and network news bureaus, for both
radio and television newscasts!
Beside this they scan and clip the important news
magazines -- Time, Newsweek, U.S. News, Der Spiegel, and others, in
addition to important newspapers, such as the Wall Street Journal,
Christian Science Monitor, New York Times, Chicago Tribune, London
Daily Times, and Paris Match. These men work very closely with Ted
and with me and our writers for The PLAIN TRUTH.
Often the really important news might be printed in a
small story on page 23, while a local murder gets the big headline
on page 1. Our men are trained to sift out the really important
news and get it, together with its meaning and significance, to our
vast worldwide audience -- news they probably never read in their
newspapers, or heard on more current newscasts. This is all
carefully boiled down, classified, and on whatever subject Ted is